Latin America has been during the last three decades one of the most active regions of dam construction in the world, with several projects among the world's largest. These are led by the largest hydroelectric project in the world, the Itaipu Dam on the River Parana in Paraguay. Completed in 1982, it could generate 12,600 megawatts. It provides power primarily to Brazil, and was closely associated with Brazil's military regimes. Another significant project is the Balbinas Dam, which flooded an enormous extent of the Amazon rainforest, causing environmental
devastation for marginal benefits.

"The Paraguay-Paraná Hidrovia is a proposal to convert 3,400 km of the Paraguay and Paraná River system of South America into an industrial shipping channel. The project, which has been called "the backbone" of Mercosur, the Southern cone Common Market, is part of a broader plan to expand agribusiness and mining activities. It could have irreversible impacts on the world's largest wetlands, the Brazilian Pantanal, and other valuable ecosystems in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina." "The Biobío flows from the Cordillera of the Andes, through magnificent gorges and forests of araucacia pine, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Over one million people use the resources of the Biobío for drinking and irrigation water, recreation, and fisheries. ENDESA, the largest private company in Chile, is planning to construct six hydroelectric dams on the Biobío. The first of these, Pangue, is already 70% completed. ENDESA now says it will move ahead with construction of the largest of the Biobío dams, called Ralco. Ralco would be a 155 meter-high dam with a 3,400 hectare reservoir, which would displace more than 600 people, including 400 Pehuenche Indians. The upper Biobío, where the Ralco dam is planned, is home to the Pehuenche group of the Mapuche Indians, the last group of Mapuche who continue their traditional lifestyle. The dam would flood over 70 km of the river valley, inundating the richly diverse forest and its wildlife. Environmental and indigenous rights groups oppose the project not only because of the wide scale destruction it would cause, but also because projections of Chile's future energy requirements indicat that the energy it would produce will not be needed. Critics of Ralco also say that construction would violate the new Chilean Environmental and Indigenous Peoples Laws and prior agreements between ENDESA and the World Bank."

Sources:
o Bonetto, A. A. , I. R. Wais, "Powerful Paraná," Geographical
Magazine, 1990, 62(3): 1-3.
o Cummings, Barbara J., "Dam the Rivers; Damn the People: Hydroelectric Development and Resistance in Amazonian Brazil," GeoJournal, 1995, 35(2): 151-160.
o Fearnside, Philip, & Reinaldo Imbrozio Barbosa, "Political Benefits as Barriers to Assessment of Environmental Costs in Brazil's Amazonian Development Planning: The Example of the Jatapu Dam in Roraima," Environmental Management, 1996, 20(5): 615-630; and "The Cotingo Dam as a Test of Brazil's System for Evaluating Proposed Developments in Amazonia," Environmental Management, 1996, 20(5): 631-648. [from the abstract: "Examination of the financial arguments for the Cotingo Dam indicates that justifications in this sphere are insufficient to explain why the project is favored over other alternatives and points to political factors as the best explanation of the project's high priority. Strong pressure from political and entrepreneurial interest groups almost invariably dominates decision making in Amazonia."]
o Hall, Anthony, "Grassroots Action for Resettlement Planning: Brazil and Beyond," World Development, 1994, 22(12): 1793-1809.
o Pearce, Fred, The Dammed, pp. 214-217 [a brief profile of the
Balbinas Dam.]
o Usher, Ann Danaiya, "Kvaener's Game," [on the role of Nordic aid
in the Pangue Dam on Chile's Biobío River], pp. 133-152; Juan
Pablo Orrego Silva, "In Defence of the Biobío River," pp.
153-170, in: A. D. Usher, ed., Dams as Aid: A political economy
of Nordic development thinking, (London: Routledge, 1997).
o Wali, Alaka, "The Transformation of a Frontier: State and Regional Relationships in Panama, 1972-1990," Human Organization, 1993, 52(2): 115-129. [Discusses changing political and social relationships, after construction of a hydroelectric dam.]